James W. Anderson said
This is a pretty helpful resource overall, but if you buy this book, just skip the first part entirely and start with Chapter 7. For some inexplicable reason the author felt it important to regurgitate basic project management and planning concepts in the first part, which anyone in IT will already know or at least have other, better references for. So basically, the first hundred pages are a waste of space, in my opinion.
The rest of the book does a pretty good job covering SRS features, including installation aspects, ongoing maintenance, and performance tuning and troubleshooting. If you're new to Reporting Services, or have only a basic or intermediate working knowledge of the product, this book does have some good info to share. I do wish that the author had taken the time to illustrate more of the architectural aspects of the product, or at least go into detail beyond simple "here's the SQL Server and there's the Reporting Services server" with a line between them. Show the reader how the different pieces of SRS fit together and work, and illustrate the relationships between the different reporting objects, data sources, and so on. There are lots of screen prints to show end user scenarios, but the book is surprisingly light on architectural concepts, something I expected more in a book that touts itself as a resource on "infrastructure design."
In summary, it's a pretty good technical resource overall, but could do without the entire first part and could use more detailed diagrams of the product architecture.
Also, and this is a slam against the publisher and not the author: a better quality grade of paper would be appreciated. The MSRP for this text is nearly sixty bucks, yet it was printed on the cheapest pulp there is. My copy is less than three months old and already the pages have yellowed and taken on a musty "library smell." I have O'Reilly and MS Press books that are ten years old or better and the pages are still white and "stink-free." I know, a petty gripe, but these books aren't cheap so is that too much to ask?
Lefty said
The book has a lot of good information and presents the nuts and bolts of creating reports in the Reporting Services. I found the layout and the descriptions to be very good.
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